PCT spending by disease to be analysed

Primary care trusts will be sent information on how much they spend on different conditions and their “value related outcomes” next month.

The health information packs are designed to try and achieve common agreement among commissioners and clinicians about what are high and low value activities in order to reduce variations in spending.

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The health information packs present existing commissioning tools in a new format to illustrate an individual PCT’s spend against one disease group.”

The work forms part of the quality, innovation, productivity and prevention programme. NHS chief knowledge officer Sir Muir Gray is jointly leading the QIPP “Right Care” national workstream, which plans to save £2.4bn in reduced spending variation by 2013-14.

The workstream wants to encourage commissioners to focus on “programme budgets” that deal with entire health-related populations, for example asthma patients, rather than isolated procedures and treatments.

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